Backblog

O! my poor neglected blog!

Lessee, what's been happening?

1. One of my sisters is going to college down in Daytona Beach. So, naturally, when Spring Break hit, she wanted to come up to visit me in frigid unbeachy Chicago. All things considered, I very much approved. (My teenaged sister? In Daytona Beach for Spring Break? Like hell.)

2. The new crop of prospective grad students came down for the annual "prospective week" to check us out. I hosted a guy from Finland who said he'd already decided to accept our offer of admission, barring anything short of a "catastrophe". I guess they knew what they were doing when they sent him to stay with me.

As per tradition, the week's festivities included a night of Live Band Karaoke. I horribly abused "Living on a Prayer" (accursed rock anthems!), but then redeemed myself by doing a decent rendition of "Hunger Strike" with a fellow rockstar (I was Vedder, he was Cornell, and we totally nailed the harmonies).

3. Dawn and I went thrift shopping uptown. Chicago has some awesome thrift stores. One of them was in the heart of the gay neighbourhood, which is cool, because gay guys are more likely to wear pants that fit me. (Chicago is, by some estimates, the fattest city in the country, and I have a skinny ass.) I found a pair of shiny black Armani pants in my size for $20. A good deal on Armani, I'd imagine, but that's about 4 times the price of any other pair of thrift store pants. Still, I was sorely tempted to buy them, and then go around saying "Who are you wearing? (etc.)"

4. My preliminary essay (mini-dissertation, due right after the next New Year) is going to be on Socratic irony. I've totally decided.